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Bolt just turns up to steal the show

Paul Mulvey

Usain Bolt only needed to turn up in Glasgow to prove he's the superstar that puts the gloss on the Commonwealth Games.

Although the six-time Olympic champion is skipping the individual sprints, he's still the undoubted main attraction of a Games missing his A-list Jamaican relay teammates Yohan Blake, Nesta Carter and Michael Frater and England's Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion Mo Farah.

But, in his Commonwealth Games debut, he's standing by the competition as a top end event.

"I don't think anybody withdrew on purpose, it's just all about injuries," he said after landing in Glasgow on Saturday.

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"It happens in the Olympics and world championships sometimes. Things just go wrong at the last moment.

"There's a lot of athletes here, I'm sure it's going to be a good Games. The athletes that are here are top tier."

He's so important to the Games, he gave the biggest press conference of the event so far just to announce his arrival, declaring he's recovered from the foot injury which forced him out of the Jamaican trials.

Bolt will definitely run the 4x100m relay, including Friday's heats.

"I'm in pretty good shape but I'm not yet in running shape, hence why I'm running the heats, to get a few runs in," he said.

His arrival marks the start of the athletics on Sunday which should also break up the Australia-England stranglehold on Games medals.

Australia tops the medals table with 18 gold, one ahead of England, after winning seven gold on Saturday, including four in the pool. Australia has 51 medals in all, to England's 45.

Host nation Scotland has equalled its best Commonwealth Games gold medal haul after just three days of competition, sitting in third place on the table with 11 gold, six of which have been won in judo, including one to flag bearer Euan Burton on Saturday.

South African Olympic champion Chad le Clos took gold in the 100m butterfly on Saturday, but his compatriot and fellow Olympic gold medallist Cameron van der Burgh was beaten into silver in the 100m breaststroke by Adam Peaty who set a Games record to claim England's fourth swimming gold.

Australia continues its cycling dominance with two more gold on Saturday, through Annette Edmondson in the women's 10km scratch race and Scott Sunderland in the men's kilo time trial, while New Zealand picked up its third gold at the velodrome with Tom Scully winning the points race.

Canadian gymnast Patricia Bezzoubenko won her fifth gold medal of the Games, taking three more in the clubs, ball and hoop individual disciplines on Saturday after already winning golds in the team and all-around events.

But her bag is no match for the collection accumulated by English grandfather Mick Gault who won a record-equalling 18th Commonwealth Games medal when he took bronze behind Australia's Daniel Repacholi in the men's 10m air pistol.